


Making Like A Tree

by Ononymous



Series: Christmas 2020 Stories and Requests [7]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:42:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28455534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ononymous/pseuds/Ononymous
Summary: What's better than a huge pile of leaves to play with? Friends to help make it bigger!
Series: Christmas 2020 Stories and Requests [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2074179
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Making Like A Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CleverCatchphrase](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CleverCatchphrase/gifts).



"Hey, there's some over there!"

"Okay..."

The leaves' attempt at evading the rakes hunting them down had come to naught. They were quickly surrounded and marshalled to join the rest of them in the center of the lawn. The fuzzy hands wielding the rake let go of it for a moment to catch his breath.

"Golly Frisk," said Asriel, "it's been a while since I saw a tree drop so many leaves!"

"In the Ruins, right?" asked Frisk.

"Well, yeah." He scratched his nose. "The weird thing though, that tree never dropped more leaves. But the leaves around it never rotted either. It was, I dunno... frozen."

"Like Toriel?"

Asriel frowned. "Yeah, I guess. It probably took after her feelings..."

The somber reminiscence was cut short with a deep "Howdy!", and the children looked up at their father holding a tray with orange juice and a plate of cookies. He put the tray down on a table by the house, then brushed some crumbs off the sleeve of his plaid jacket. Asriel and Frisk propped their rakes against the wall too and tucked into the treats.

"Golly, you've nearly swept the whole lawn!" said Asgore. "I didn't expect you to be this quick."

"Well we might have to start again," said Frisk.

"Oh?"

"Yeah," said Asriel, "a pile of leaves can't just not be jumped into like that!"

"Oh! Yes, I remember now back at Home, you and Chara did that all the time." Asgore sighed, and everyone noted the wistful tone. "In my day the royal gardeners would just burn leaves like that. Compost heaps weren't really a thing back then. Well, I'll be re-potting the snowdrops if you need any help." He went back inside.

"Hey, guys!"

They looked up from their cookies. Monsterkid was running in from the street towards them, head down and tail out behind him in an attempt at being aerodynamic.

"Dudes, what are you up to- oop-!"

_Rustle!_

Tripping over his own eagerness, Monsterkid faceplanted into the pile of leaves, yellow tail sticking out and clashing with the brown and orange leaves now drifting around the lawn.

"Aww, come on!" cried Asriel as he and Frisk ran over. "We worked on that for an hour!"

"Yv dv tgt fr fn?" mumbled Monsterkid.

"Sorry?" said Frisk as they extracted him from the leaves.

"You fall in piles of leaves for fun?" He looked at the two kids with a skeptical look, which quickly turned to cheer. "Yo, that's so cool!"

"Huh?" Asriel tilted his head. "You've never done it before?"

"Az, trees in Snowdin don't really drop leaves like that," said Monsterkid. "Hey, can I jump in again?"

"We need to gather them up again," said Frisk, "make it like a pile of pillows."

"Heyyyyyyy," said Monsterkid, "I've got a better idea..."

* * *

The next day, the three children were in the woods near Mount Ebott, armed - or tailed in one case - with a wheelbarrow and several rakes. The autumnal carpet covered nearly the entire ground, and was still depositing from the thinning branches above.

"One tree, a leaf pile big enough for one or two of us," said Monsterkid. "Dozens of trees -" he gestured at the ground, "- a leaf pile big enough for dozens of one or two of us!"

Asriel's emerald eyes twinkled at the untapped possibilities. "I bet we could go swimming in them!"

"This may take a while," said Frisk, "we were working on that small pile for an hour or so."

"Nothing worth doing skips hard work," said Monsterkid, "but yeah, we want there to be daylight when we're done. So I called for help."

"Atten- _SHUN!_ "

The three children found themselves standing in a line, arms - where applicable - snapped to their sides, chests puffed out. Walking from behind one of the trees was a grin of razor sharp teeth, followed by a nervous smile two feet lower.

"So you wanna rake leaves," barked Undyne, "have something fun to jump into? I've consulted with former Royal Scientist Doctor Alphys here to determine the best ratio of volume and density for maximum fun, and we will be following her plan to. The. Letter!"

"Yes, Captain!" yelled the kids. Discipline was absolute.

"Very well!" A spear flashed into her hand, and with a little effort she reshaped its head into a shimmering blue rake. "Prince, you're with me. You two, clear a line from that tree with all the branches on one side to the one with the nest on its lowest branch. All leaves inside that line will be our building material. Move out!"

They moved out. While the four manual labourers cleared the border of the pentagonal shaped perimeter, Alphys was operating a hovering vacuum device to get a head start on harvesting the leaves., which would be useful when the pile would soon outgrow their ability to easily deposit with mere rakes.

"Oh... man..." huffed Monsterkid, struggling with keeping his rake straight while his tail maneuvered it, "this will... be so... dope..."

"Are you sure you're okay with using it like that?" asked Frisk.

"Yeah, I'm cool... Besides, my arms aren't quite there yet."

To demonstrate what he meant, Monsterkid screwed up his face in concentration. A flash preceded two orange translucent arms rooted on his shoulders. To Frisk, they looked kind of like skeletal arms. He bent over, and one of the arms took hold of a leaf, while the other one faded from lack of focus. The leaf stayed in his hand for a few seconds, before falling straight through it right before both disappeared completely, Monsterkid allowing himself to breathe again.

"I need... to practice..."

"Hey! No idle chitchat!" shouted Undyne.

They got back to finishing their line, then continuing to the next tree Undyne pointed out. Alphys produced a second vacuum drone to start gathering leaves. Meanwhile Asriel watched as Undyne managed to clear two yards of the line with a single blow.

"You sure you're okay with leading the trail, Undyne?" asked Asriel, raking the few remaining leaves off the path.

"Why wouldn't I be?" She took great delight in another blow. "This is unorthodox training, is all."

Asriel stepped in front of her. "You mind if I try something?"

"Well yeah, you're blocking-"

"Thanks!" He raised a hand, and a yellow glow surrounded it. Undyne felt dry air irritate her gills, as a wind suddenly kicked up. She realised it was coming from his hand, blasting into the ground and shoving the leaves to one side like an invisible snowplough. He got around ten feet before it stopped. "Phew, that's hard to keep up!"

Undyne forced her jaw closed. "I didn't know you could do that!"

"Mom makes me practice. Can't rely on the same magic, all the time, right?"

Undyne remembered a sudden icy blast during what had been a heated argument. "Yeah, I guess..."

The perimeter was cleared, and now the four of them could join Alphys' slowly growing pile in the center. Frisk and Monsterkid used the wheelbarrow to gather up large bundles and wheel them over, where a third drone emptied it for them, while Undyne more or less threw the piles she and Asriel raked up on top of the construction site. The work continued in this vein for around three hours, sometimes swapping partners and sometimes helping Alphys reboot a drone that malfunctioned. When it was done, the three kids sat against a tree with the sandwiches and drinks their parents had insisted on packing for them, admiring the pyramid their hard labour had brought about.

"This is gonna be so cool, dudes," said Monsterkid.

"Yeah!" said Asriel. "I can't believe we got such a huge pile done so quick."

"I know what I'm doing until sunset," said Frisk. "Hey Undyne, you want some of this Sea Tea...?"

Undyne and Alphys were nowhere to be seen. No drones either. It was like they'd never been there at all.

"Hey," said Asriel, "where'd they go-?"

"...nnnnnggaaaaaaAAA _AAAAA **AAHHHH!!!!!**_ "

They looked up to the tallest branch of the tallest tree, which Undyne had just leapt off while holding a bundle of yellow and white. That was the last intelligible thing they made out before...

**FWOOMPH!**

A mushroom cloud of leaves erupted over the forest, keeping its shape for a long time before the wind finally caught them and blew them far and wide. At ground zero, one still very large pile of leaves trembled, and eventually the three children climbed out of it, watching Undyne stand in the middle of where the pyramid once stood, Alphys still in her arms.

"...sorry." She snapped a grin. "Couldn't resist! See Alph, I told you that would be fun- Oh, she's fainted..."

"Yo, what were you a turd for?!" yelled Monsterkid. "We didn't work together all day just so you could hijack it!"

"Well, the way Alph clocked it..." Undyne pointed around. "There's still plenty to go around, right?"

They looked at the blast radius for the first time. At least two dozen piles of leaves, all much larger than the one on Asgore's lawn yesterday, had been created as a result of the force Undyne had crashed into the pyramid.

"Yeah, well," muttered Monsterkid, "just because that worked out... doesn't mean the principle's not at... aw, what the heck do I care, last one in's a friend of Jerry's!"

He raced over to the largest remaining pile and triped into the base. It held firm, so Frisk and Asriel chased after him and dived in. The forest was full of their laughted as they wriggled around the piles and threw the leaves around, having a great time. Meanwhile, Asgore looked out on his lawn and wondered where on earth all these leaves came from.

**Author's Note:**

> Original suggestion: How about... Any combination of the 4 kids (chara, frisk, asriel and mk) jumping in leaf piles. And maybe undyne is there to help them make the biggest leaf pile in the world. I think that might have potential to be cute
> 
> Let me know what you think, and thanks for reading!


End file.
